


Something Better

by StoriBambino



Series: Stori's Playlist [1]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Inspired by Music, Kidnapping, Mentions of Murder, StoriesbyStori, domestic abuse, mentions of cheating, mentions of past violence, use of the n-word
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-15 13:21:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14791284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StoriBambino/pseuds/StoriBambino
Summary: You deserve something better and he knows you do. But will he let you move on?





	1. Trapped

**Author's Note:**

> The song Me 4 U - Trey Songz popped into my head and then this little drabble followed soon after. I wrote this at work so if there are mistakes be nice and let me know.
> 
> Please be advised the relationship in this story is unhealthy and if you find yourself in one that resembles this please get assistance and support.
> 
> As always my work centers POC and the reader is assumed black unless otherwise stated. Again if you don't like it then move along. Nothing to see here.

“I can’t do this anymore. I’m over it.” You sigh, defeated. You were done arguing. There was no getting through to him. You were done making a scene on the front porch and praying the police won’t show up. As you go to grab your suitcase he kicks it out of reach.

“You ain’t going nowhere!” He yells.

You realize you should’ve never answered your phone.

_Who’s that talking in the background? No one. Is there is a nigga in my house? I swear to God I will kill a nigga. Erik no!_

You were able to get the movers out the house before he arrived to block your exit.

“I love you.” He said coming into the house.

“Really? I can’t tell.” You say creating some space between the two of you. “Actions speak louder than words and yours say you don’t care.”

“The fuck you mean? I’m here ain’t I? You know where my heart is. I do love you and you hold me down.” His voice softens only making you angry all over again.

“But what am I holding on to, huh? Almost every night you’re out doing God knows what with God knows who. It’s been too DAMN long for me to still feel like I don’t matter.” You scream.

He takes a step back further into the foyer at the outburst, analyzing you. “I’m out there making sure you have the life you wanted. “Baby you’re my star. You bring all the light into my life.” He begins to close the distance again but you turn your back and step away. “You just gon throw me back into the darkness?”

You couldn’t look at him. If you did you knew it would be over. One look into those deep sorrowful eyes you’d fallen in love with, one touch of thouse calloused hands to your skin and all your resolve would crumble. He’d whisper sweet words then make love to you and it would be good, so so good. But it wouldn’t last. It never did. It couldn’t.

“I’ve allowed this for much too long. I deserve something better, someone better.” You will your voice not to crack

“I know you do,” His words land like a rock in your gut. “I’m trying to be better. Trying to get it right for you. But you can’t ask me to let you to, it’s me and you…There’s not anyone out there for me except you.” He takes another step toward you, hands reaching out. You catch his movement from the corner of your eye.

“Don’t touch me! You make me sick,” Voice straining. “This whole arrangement does.”

Fire flashes in his eyes. “The fuck you talking about, what arrangement?”

“That I ignore everything I see, what I feel, what I’ve heard. For this so-called love.”

“What have you heard?” His voice is low.

“That you’re capable of anything. The cheating I knew I could forgive. But murder Erik?” You steady yourself on the end table.

“I told you I would kill a nigga for you. I never heard a complaint about the way I love you before.”

“That’s NOT love!” You turn quickly to face him, tears in your eyes threatening to spill over. “ You can’t love me and control me. The secrets, the lies, it’s like I don’t even know you”

“I have never given anyone what I give to you. I let you see all of me and you **knew** that shit wasn’t pretty.” He takes a tentative step. “You saw a better man in me. He’s still here. I’m still here. Is that not enough?” He closes the distance. You can feel the heat radiating off of him.

You hang your head and he hugs you close pushing the two of you against the nearest wall. You pull your head back and look at him, seeing the pain and anger and maybe love there too. “No, it’s not. Not anymore.” Your voice is only a whisper.

He squeezes you tighter ans his face crumbles. You think it’s sadness that flashes in his eyes but then it’s replaced by something else. “I’m sorry,” Is this regret? “But I can’t let you go.”

Then the world goes black.

—***—-

You awake but can’t see, limbs heavy in the darkness. You try to move but abort as pain races up your arms and down your legs. An aching headache radiates from the back of your head, you can tell a lump is quickly forming there. The scream you let out is muffled in your throat by a cloth gag.

“This is what you wanted isn’t it?” Erik’s voice cuts through the room. Squinting you can see him standing in the corner. “This is what you live for, me showing you how much I love you how much I care.” He comes to stand directly in front of you. “You’re just as twisted as me. You allow all of this. You make a little noise now and again to remind me what a good person you are.” He leans down, coming face to face with you in the almost black room. “But a good person wouldn’t be here right now.”


	2. When You Say It Like That

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can you escape?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music for this chapter is Garden - SZA. Listen while reading for the best effect. I've always thought there was something beautifully tragic about this song.

“Do you remember the first time you told me you loved me?” His breath is hot on your face. “I do. I remember everything about that night. It was when it all changed when you showed me exactly who you are.”

He steps away from you and turns on a lamp sitting on a desk you hadn’t noticed before. The sudden illumination blinds you temporarily forcing you to close your eyes. When you’re able to adjust you see you’re in a small room. Bare brick line three of the walls the other looked to have steel plating. The only furniture present was the wooden desk and two chairs made from dark wood. One of which you were secured to with thick rope. Notebooks, papers, maps and pens liter the desk and there are a few bookshelves in two corners.

Erik watches you take in your surroundings before speaking again, “You don’t know where you are, do you?” He smiles at you coming over to remove the gag.

You take several deep breaths before you respond, “How the fuck am I supposed to know that?” Your breath is still ragged and your tongue feels heavy in your mouth.

“That language isn’t very becoming princess.” He says tapping you on the cheek.

“You rather I be demure.” You hiss through clenched teeth.

“I’d rather you be rational.”

“Rational? What about this is rational Erik?!” Maybe it was the way you whipped your head to look at him or maybe it was your blood pressure spiking but you instantly felt dizzy. Your vision swam slightly. “Did you drug me?” You slurred.

“I would never do something like that.” He scoffed.

“Oh right, but bashing my head in was fine.” You lean your head back to catch your breath and he places his hands on your shoulders. You stiffen at the contact and attempt to shrink into the chair away from him.

“I asked you a question. I actually asked you two questions.” When you did respond he continues. “This is where it all started. Right outside these walls you told me you loved me the first time.”

You scanned the room again. There was a small window near the ceiling above the desk and that’s where you saw it, your poster. It was a small print of a field of orchids you’d gotten from a local artist at one of the shows you hosted upstairs in the art gallery you managed. The picture had often brought you peace after a particularly stressful day or client. You had abandoned this makeshift office over a year ago when you got the promotion.

“My office, we are in my office.” You whispered.

“That’s right. Now back to the first question. Do you remember or not?” He said, dragging the other chair in front of you and sitting.

“Erik please, you don’t have to do this.” You pleaded.

“Answer me Y/N, my princess.”

“I was scared I didn’t know what I was saying at the time. I almost died and you saved me.” You began to ramble.

“So you do remember?” He raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything else. You knew he wanted you to tell him the story of how it began, how you began.

“It was late. I had just finished locking up and I was attacked, guy came out of nowhere and put a knife to my neck. I tried to get away and he cut me. I screamed and you came to save me. You shot him and I told you I loved you.” You never break eye contact with him as you retell the story. “But I didn’t mean it. It was adrenaline.”

“I know bullshit when I hear it. No, you said you loved me cause you looked at me and saw me then you saw yourself. Even if I wouldn’t have come that guy would’ve ended up dead. You know it just like I do, you’re just like me.”

“That’s not true!” You screamed. Tears already had begun to tickle the back of your eyes.

“It is! Wanna know how I know.” He leaned forward in his seat, his voice low. “I took your pulse.” Your thoughts run back to that night. _The knife, a scream, the blood. Blood on your hands? A shot, a fall, a hand. A hand on your neck checking the injury._ “Your heart rate was steady as a sleeping child and a man had died right in front of you. In that moment you knew exactly who I was and I understood who you really are. What you spend so much time trying to hide.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The response sounded childish in your own ears but you couldn’t think of anything else to say. Was he right? _A good person wouldn’t be here right now_. No. You are a good person. You deserve better. He’d done terrible things behind your back and it was over. “That doesn’t matter anyway. It doesn’t change that I’m done. You defended me that night but what you’ve been doing is murder. I wanna be loved and not be afraid of the person loving me.”

“I do love you,” He wiped away the traitorous tears that had escaped down your cheek. “I love the real you.”

The words sound hollow. He was just trying to keep you. “If you know the real me then you know if I don’t leave I’ll die. Either one day you’re gonna wake up and think I’m too much of a risk or…” You trailed off as your voice began to shake. Now isn’t the time for weakness so you pushed on, “Or I’m going to keep making decisions to destroy myself.”

Maybe he was right. Maybe you were like him. Since that day in the parking lot, you’d grown more reckless, darker. You drank more and fought more. The relationship was killing you little by little you both knew it. “I’ve seen this story before Erik and it only ends one way.”

“We can get past this. You ground me and I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose you.” His eyes were intense and his jaw was set as he spoke.

“There was a time before me and there’ll be a time after me. You just need to decide if you wanna kill me now or later or let me go and let me be free. If you ever really loved me let me go.” Your voice was steady but you could feel your lips quiver and hands shake.

“Those my only options?” He asks. You give him a nod. His expression softens for a moment and the rest of the tears spill over blurring your vision. He kisses you and wipes away more of the tears. “It’s gonna be ok.”

He stands suddenly and walks around to the back of the chair. The ropes are untied and fall away. Before you could move to stretch your tired limbs the cold barrel of a gun is pressed to the back of your skull. You don’t dare turn around, not that it would matter. Erik had made his decision.

“You really don’t think I love you.” He questions.

“I don’t believe you. You never loved me,” you say quietly.

The silence between you two extends for what feels like hours. He hasn’t moved and if it wasn’t for the steel against your scalp you would’ve thought he was gone. You have begun to accept your fate when a question forms on your lips.

“Erik?”

“Yes, princess?” He answers after a breath. Good to know you weren’t the only one holding it in.

“Do you remember the first time you told me you loved me?” You don’t wait for him to answer. “It was one night, really late. We were exhausted and you thought I was asleep and honestly I almost was. You held me close to your chest and you whispered I love you into the darkness. It’s funny cause I thought it was a dream for so long. It happened again a few weeks later and I knew it wasn’t. Do you remember that first night?”

His response wasn’t immediate. You swear there’s a sniffle before his shaky, “Yeah Y/N I remember.”

“Can you say it like that?”

He leaned down and you felt his lips ghost across your neck below your ear. “I love you Y/N.” The words were somewhere between a prayer and an apology.

“I believe you when you say it like that.” You sighed deeply. You didn’t need anything else. You were ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments, questions, concerns? You good sis?
> 
> [come find me on the tumblr](https://storibambino.tumblr.com/)

**Author's Note:**

> But wait there's more to come
> 
> [come find me on the tumblr](https://storibambino.tumblr.com/)


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